Way back in the early days of Simple Llama, I created a hard-set schedule. Every Monday and Thursday I was to publish a shiny, brand new article. For quite awhile, that schedule worked perfectly. In fact, I was often ahead of things, and had a full queue of posts waiting to be published.
There came a point when I had to make a decision, however. Continue with an unnatural, forced schedule and stress myself out…. or just don’t publish.
Forcing myself to write because of a self-imposed schedule doesn’t seem very simple. Writing should come easy; I shouldn’t have to fight to come up with my words.
In a way, schedules are the enemy of creativity.
Creativity and ideas come whenever they want to. Neither desire or more hours in front of my computer can make me more creative. All it does it stress me out, which is one of my biggest things to avoid in my desire to simplify my life.
Schedules are to be avoided whenever reasonably possible.
I fully believe that schedules are a bad thing in nearly all cases. Publishing schedules, work schedules, it’s all crap. Who decided that I’m at my most productive from 9 to 5 Monday through Friday? (I’m most certainly not, by the way.)
If you work for yourself, you’ve probably already figured out when you’re most efficient. Hopefully you’re using that to your advantage, and getting more work done in less time. If you sit down to work and it’s just not happening, do something else. Don’t force yourself to adhere to a schedule that you created. That’s pretty stupid if you think about it.
If you want to end up working to many hours, stressed out, and with subpar results, then stick to your fancy schedule. If you want to work less, do more, and be able to relax, then ignore the schedule.